Sea of Grey l-10

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Give her the wind-gauge sir?" Mister Winwood queried.

  "If Admiral Duncan can fight from loo'rd, then so can we, sir," he replied. "Her starboard ports are closed, she ain't ready, and with any luck at all, they've got the wind up. Quick-around, lads! Hurry!"

  "Ease helm, ease off jib sheets… haul weather mizen to windward… tend lee mizen sheet!" Langlie was babbling, too, urgently ordering what was usually a staid rite. "Let go foresheets, check the lee forebrace, check the fore topbowline… rise, tacks and sheets!"

  "Be ready, Mister Wyman… as you bear!" Lewrie urged. He went to the nettings overlooking the waist to watch as each gun-captain put a fist in the air to indicate readiness, the trigger-lines to the flintlock strikers taut in their other hands.

  Yards, blocks, and parrels crying, Proteus came up to the eye of the wind, hesitated for a dreadful second as if she'd miss stays and become a motionless victim, then slowly swung farther to starboard with a breeze beginning to tickle her sails. "Now, mains'l haul!"

  "Yes, by God!" Lewrie exulted, now rapt with battle-fever, his usual state, with all thought of stoicism and the sang-froid of a true English captain quite flown his head.

  "As you bear…fire!" Lt. Wyman shouted, slashing down his sword in a glittering arc as they crossed the Dutch frigate's stern once more, this time at an acute angle, left-to-right.

  Timber shattered, side planking was ripped away and flung as if a tornado had struck her! Her mizen groaned and shook once more, yards turning and spiralling as the lower mast was shot through below decks, and shedding sailors and Dutch Marines from the fighting top in a tangle of rigging and upper spars, releasing aft tension to her mainmast, that groaned and canted forward, too.

  At an angle, yes, but closer this time, at half a hundred yards, and they could hear the screams and howls as their roundshot tore down the gun-deck, open from end-to-end; hear the thuds and crashes of shot

  tearing away carline posts and turning stout timbers to clouds of splinters that flew about madly, swiftly, ripping into flesh, breaking bone, as merciless as Col. Shrapnel's case-shot shells that exploded in clouds of musket balls!

  Her rudder and her transom post, with the pintles and gudgeons that held it in place, were turned to kindling. And, without a rudder, and with the loss of her balancing mizen sails to counter the pressure on her foresails, the Dutch frigate sagged offwind, falling off to parallel Proteus as she sailed past.

  "Damme!" one of the helmsmen gasped as the enemy's gun-ports on her starboard side opened, hinging upward, as here and there the dark snouts of readied guns jerked into view! It would not be a complete or ordered broadside, but at this close range, it would be a blow to the bowels!

  "Flat on the deck!" Lewrie shouted to his crew, though standing with his hands behind his back, planting his feet to receive the blow with courage… even if his innards had just turned to gurgly water! B-b-boom!

  The Dutch broadside stuttered, perhaps with only ten of her guns. Lewrie had time to count gun-ports, now that she was abeam them.

  Ten out of fourteen, he thought with a wince, as the thundrous roar surrounded him, making his heart flutter with its nearness; she's a thirty-six, but thank God those ain't eighteen-pounders!

  Proteus sounded as if she was screaming, with those hideous parrot squawks as roundshot tore clean through her sides; Rwwwarrwwk! then thud and crash! She jumped and trembled, juddering enough to toss him inches off the deck, then rise to meet him as he dropped with his knees flexed. Hot gusts of wind pummeled at him as he opened one eye to see if he, and his ship, were still in one piece, or among the living.

  Shot his bolt, Lewrie thought, hot anger flushing him that he'd been fooled into reach of the Dutch gunners; now, it's our turn!

  "Everyone up! Man your guns! Load, load, load!" he shouted.

  The Dutch had fired low, English fashion, "twixt wind and water" instead of emulating the long-range firing of their allies the French, who preferred firing high, to dis-mast and cripple enemy ships, so they could be out-manoeuvred and taken… or fled, if things went against them.

  He daren't even look over the side, to see damage done to his beautiful new frigate, how shattered she might be below! Someone would come run tell him, he was mortal-certain.

  The Dutch frigate was close, sagging down against Proteus, and Proteus was slowing, with the light, gun-shot wind stolen from her by the sails and rigging of the Dutch, up to windward of her!

  Damme for goin ' under, too! he chastised himself; now, we 're to be hull to hull, with no chance of slippin' off!

  They would fight like line-of-battle ships, instead of dancing, weaving, and sparring; locked yardarm-to-yardarm, guns blasting with the muzzles almost touching the enemy, taking fire in like manner!

  "Load and fire… point-blank! Mister Devereux?"

  "Captain, sir?"

  "Think it's close enough for grenadoes, now, do you?"

  "I do indeed, sir," Devereux replied with a slight grin, drawing his smallsword and shouting at his Marines aloft to light fuses, to get their light swivel guns firing like one-inch bored shotguns, filled with langridge or bags of pistol balls. "Sir… pardon my suggesting it, but… were I you, Captain, I'd pace about. Don't give their marksmen a chance at you."

  "If it gets thick, Mister Devereux, I'll lurk behind you. With that handsome red coat of yours, I'm sure you're the finer target."

  Wyman got his guns going again, firing at will, as fast as the bores could be swabbed out, reloaded, and run out. Thirteen guns, first; then only twelve as one was up-ended, then eleven. The Dutch must have loaded and prepared that one, good broadside, though, and hadn't crew enough still on their feet to serve their pieces quite so quickly. The Dutch response was eight guns, then seven, then six.

  It was deafening, howling chaos, loud enough to make sailors and Marines bleed from their ears and noses. Between the titanic blasts from heavy guns, the barks of swivels, the crack of muskets and pistols, and the dull bangs from flung grenadoes created a continual drumming. Ball spanged and caromed from gun barrels, thonked into timbers and tore out gouts of dust, splinters, and lead splatters. Proteus's quarterdeck was quickly quilled with torn-up slivers of holystoned wood, making it hard to walk. The surgeon's mates, Mr. Hodson and the laconic French йmigrй

  Mr. Maurice Durant, made continual trips up from below with the narrow, rope-strapped carrying boards borne by their loblollymen to haul shaken and wounded men below. The dead were piled about the bases of the masts!

  "Yah pistols, sah," his Coxswain, Andrews, said, fetching him a brace of double-barreled Mantons. "I thought ya might like havin' yer Ferguson rifle, too."

  Lewrie stuck the pistols in his waist-belt, slung the cartouche box over his shoulder, and accepted a horn of priming powder, quickly loading the deadly-accurate breechloader rifled musket. Shooting back, he decided, beat pacing about like a fart in a trance, all hollow! He took aim at an officer in a bicorne hat, swung slowly to follow him as he paced about, bellowing and waving a sword, and…

  "Got you!" he exulted after the muzzle-smoke cleared, seeing his foeman fall into the arms of a pair of Dutch mates, then drop below the bulwarks and disappear. One turn of the screw-breech lever, below the trigger and lock assembly; lower the barrel, rip a cartouche open with his teeth, shove it ball-end forward into the barrel, then screw in the opposite direction to close the breech. Frizzen at half-cock, the pan open for a touch of priming powder; snap the frizzen shut; draw the lock to full cock, and search for another target… a thickset gunner's mate or something like that, up on the gangway and urging his crews to load… a careful aim, a pent breath…

  "Got you!" he crowed again.

  "Sir, their fire's slacking!" Langlie pointed out, coming over to his side. "We're shooting her to pieces, they don't have Smashers, and we're turnin' her into a sieve! They're gatherin' amidships, with pikes and pistols. I think they're about to board us!"

  By then, Lewrie was half-deaf and it took concentration to heed L
anglie's words, mostly by lip-reading. But the only cannon fire he could hear was now under his own feet. He lowered his gaze to see the damage done to the Dutch frigate's hull, and it did, indeed, resemble a sieve or colander-one could not find a stretch of her scantling more than ten feet long without a ragged, star-shaped hole punched in it! He saw sailors and Marines gathering, cutlasses waving, surviving officers, mates or midshipmen shoving them into order…

  "Mister Wyman! Last rounds, then take up arms!" Lewrie called down to the gun-deck. "Boarders! Mister Devereux, your Marines, down from the tops, and ready to re-"

  Something went Bang-splang-fwee! off a quarterdeck 6-pounder, a blink before Lewrie felt as if someone had just hit his left arm with a waggon-tongue! He was spun about in a half-circle leftward, to trip over his own feet and tumble to the deck!

  "Goddammit!" he meant to shout, but it came out rather weakly, even to his ears. 'Cause I'm gun-deaf? he had to wonder. Suddenly, he was shivering cold, with only the cattle-brand heat in his arm to warm him. He looked up at Langlie and Devereux, as if from the bottom of a well, with the sides blotting out most of the sky, and…

  "B-boarders!" he insisted, the ringing in his ears smothering his own words.

  "Surgeon's Mate!" someone was keening.

  "Never fear, sir… we'll take her for you," someone very like Langlie whispered, leaning down over his face as he was jostled by many hands, soaring aloft like a freed soul, with something hard and narrow under him as he was quickly bound with ropes like some damned soul for spitting and roasting on the Devil's rфtisserie.

  "Proteuses… away boarders! Away boarders!"

  "No, repel boarders, not…!"

  He was sure he'd said it, but no one paid him any mind but for Mr. Durant, who was making clucking noises and shaking his head sadly.

  Daylight was gone; he was plunged into reeking, foetid darkness, feet-first into the "fug" of unwashed bodies, bilges, and stinks; below into glim-lit Hades. To the cockpit on the orlop, where the wailing and shrieking of the eternally damned soared and chorused in an atonal agony. Those saved, above, shouted Hosannas of blissful and eternal joy- though they were making a rather noisy, tinkery, metallic and feu de joie music along with their paeans!

  "It must come off, at once," Mr. Thomas Shirley, the twentyish surgeon, lowed like a cow, spouting some dry, esoteric dog-Latin.

  "Non, non… ze humerus is broken, not shattered, m'sieur," Durant (or somebody Froggish, anyway!) insisted. "See, ze axillary responds when I stick 'is palm, and…"

  "Ow! Bloody…!"

  "Ze blood loss suggest ze axillary artery is non torn, aussi? Cut eez coat and shirt off, s'il vous plaоt… gently. Ze ball pass through complete, you see? M'sieur Capitaine? Drink zees, an' think ze pleasant thought." Followed by more "Ahumms" and Latin gibberish.

  A large pewter cup of rum was shoved under Lewrie's nose and he drank it down, just before a leather gag was put between his teeth to bite on when the pain got severe… which it did!

  They probed, retracting wool coat and silk shirt shards, taking out slivers of bone and tiny splashes of lead, Durant insisting that a watered tincture of brandy be splashed around inside the wound, over the instruments, before they squeezed, twisted, and pried at his arm to see how it lined up before getting shot… and re-set it!

  "A simple fracture, after all, sir."

  "Sonofagoddamnbitchl'llbloodykillyourmiserableFrogass!"

  "You are welcome, M'sieur Capitaine. Next?"

  He was bound in linen, with lots of batting, also soaked in the French йmigrй's watered brandy, that stung like Blazes; over the bandages, two wooden belaying pins were bound taut with twine; some spare Number Eight sailcloth, the lightest aboard, was fashioned into a neat sling; and he was stowed forrud on a straw-filled mattress, armed with another hefty measure of rum, then ignored.

  "We took her, sir! We took her!" Langlie was crowing about a quarter-hour later, coming to his side with flecks of blood (hopefully someone else's!) on his coat facings, his cheek, and shirt. "Oh, 'twas a hard fight, but we took her! You were right to call for boarders, Captain Lewrie. Had they formed and attempted to board us, well…! But we beat them to it, and broke their spirit into the bargain."

  Lewrie could but gawp at him (a trifle drunkenly by then) and wonder what the Blazes this idiot was babbling about!

  "Very good, sir. Just get me out of this cess-pit and back to my roomin' house, 'fore the wife finds me, hey?"

  "Sir?" Lt. Langlie gawped in puzzlement.

  "Oh, never mind, I'm too sleepy t'care."

  "And that, sirs, is how I conquered a Dutch frigate," Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, concluded with a blithe laugh. "Stood up shirtless, strapped to a carryin' board by the windward mizen shrouds, with a cup of rum in my hands, towin' out our prize! Speaking of… allow me to propose another toast. To Lieutenant Anthony Langlie, my able First Officer, and the true hero of the piece. He placed the Batavian Navy Orangespruit, a thirty-six gun Fifth Rate frigate, on a platter for me, and served her up… well done!"

  His fellow diners gave out a loud, prolonged cheer, along with the curious onlookers who had gathered to peer over their shoulders as the tale was told, and they clapped and laughed, as well. Handsome women in the height of Fashion that season fanned and flushed, or made as if they'd swoon. They raised a rousing "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow," to which Lewrie nodded and smiled, raising his port glass in answering salute and acknowledgement.

  Of course, it made a good tale, a 32-gun taking a 36-gun; what the public expected their Navy to accomplish. Of course, he did not tell them of his mistakes, of stumbling about in the smoke, damn near lost, of his sin of over-confidence, of yielding the wind-gauge to the Dutch so stupidly, being drawn like a lamb to the slaughter into the mouths of the guns of a doughty, wily, and desperate enemy captain, who had taken much the same precautions as he, to be the biter and not the bit, that day!

  No, this crowd wouldn't appreciate unvarnished truth, nor would they tolerate another toast, this to the dead, the maimed and gutted, to those men now minus limbs or sight, and doomed to a lifetime of poverty ashore, with but a pittance of a pension to atone for a too-brief moment of glory.

  Nineteen killed, listed with the simple "D-D" in ship's books for Discharged, Dead and interred at sea, out of sight and mind. And twenty-nine wounded, too, with fourteen of those merely Discharged… landed ashore at Sheerness and lumbered off to a naval hospital, never to return to duty, should they survive the ministrations.

  For the Dutch, it had been a slaughter-pit, as well; over sixty dead and over an hundred cruelly wounded. That was the sort of harvest that England 's public liked; the greater the number of enemy slain, the higher

  cost in British lives, well… the greater the honour! Losing captains had been knighted for bravery after such fights, since they'd run up a high "butcher's bill" of their own people before striking!

  Perhaps he should tell them the cost, he speculated; they might get a vicarious thrill from so much distant blood! All due to his work, his cockiness, his famed "luck," and his "tradition of victory"!

  While they cheered and clapped, his beloved Proteus languished in a Sheerness graving dock, her guns and stores warehoused ashore as the shipwrights repaired her many hurts. She was as nearly shattered as the captured Orangespruit! Damn 'em all! he thought; no matter what face I put on it, 'twas a costly damn' victory. Something I could never say even to Caroline in strictest privacy. My father, well… he knows of it, he's a military man, I spilled my secret to him, but… Caroline!

  He almost felt like breaking down and blubbing in public, after all! And fearing that Dame Fortune had decided to turn on him and feed him to her wolves!

  "A flutter of the cards, Captain Lewrie?" Mr. Lumsden asked.

  "Ah, no," Lewrie soberly replied. "I feel as if I've stretched my luck far enough, lately. Haven't heard from the Prize-Court yet…"

  "Our reckoning, I should think," his father quickly suggested as he spotted his son's
wavering. "We should be gettin' home, son, gettin' some part of a good night's rest. Do you gentlemen excuse us? I keep at Willis's Rooms when in town. Do call upon me, and we could pursue the matter of a gentleman's club further, perhaps discover some backers who might also find the notion intriguing…?"

  They said their good-nights, gathered their hats and cloaks from the tiler, then stood chilled at the kerb outside whilst a young "daisy kicker" servant of The Cocoa Tree whistled them up a hired carriage to bear them home.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was "fashionably" well past midnight before they entered the lodging house, with but a yawning servant to unlock the door for them and offer candles so they could light their way abovestairs. Willis's was otherwise dark and broodingly silent, the cheery fires in the common and public rooms banked, the equally cheery bar now shuttered. Sir Hugo assured his son that, failing the publican's commerce, he had a bottle of good Frog brandy in his room.

  Lewrie by then was exhausted, and not much in need of a drink; he'd had half-enough for a lifetime, thankee very much!

  The spirit's willin, but the body's weak, he thought, in awe of the other diners' capacity, of his father's ability to put it away with nary even a slurred word. Navy's ruined me, damn 'em, he decided, as he fumbled out his key, peering about owlishly.

  Lewrie hesitated before the door to his set of rooms, key finally in hand, wondering should he knock or scratch first. With a sorry curse, softly muttered, he rued again fleeing the park with his father, of coming back so late and so "in the barrel" and bedraggled, instead of rushing back to Willis's after merely an hour's pause to argue things out with Caroline, and defend himself, once she'd cooled down.

  "Devil with it," he grumbled, inserting the large key; well, he tried to, but there was but one wee candle in the passageway, the key was perversely upside-down, then backwards, and the slot, though large, seemed to be queerly mobile!